


I’m Coming Home To You...

by ShadeOps21



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: F/M, FutureAU, Identity Reveal, Mention of Military Operations, Military, PTSD, Reunion
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-04
Updated: 2019-01-02
Packaged: 2019-05-01 23:53:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 16,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14532123
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShadeOps21/pseuds/ShadeOps21
Summary: “I reach towards the sky, I’ve said my goodbye, my heart’s always with you now... I won’t question why so many have died, my prayers have made it through, yeah... ‘cause with all these things we do, it don’t matter when I’m coming home to you.”- Gunslinger, A7XAdrien decides to take an entirely different direction with his life after school, confusing his friends with the decision and leaving Marinette worried that she’ll never see him again.(Just a series of drabbles I punched out over a couple of days after listening to that song and others like it... it’s disjointed due to time skips, but I’m sure it’s readable...)





	1. The Main Story

Nobody saw the announcement coming. Not Nino. Not Chloe. Not his father.

Certainly not Marinette.

“... you’re what?” Nino said with a near whisper, still comprehending Adrien’s rather shocking announcement.

“I’m going to enlist,” Adrien repeated with a uneasy smile, as if he was struggling to believe it himself, “join the Army and serve for a few years. Just feels right to me, you know.”

“No, we don’t.” Alya said firmly, crossing her arms. “Care to explain how you came up with such an outrageous idea?!”

Adrien began his explanation, but it was all white noise to Marinette. Her mind was a raging storm of different thoughts: first and foremost was how her crush would look in the rather dashing Parade Dress uniform of the French Army; quickly followed by images of Adrien with a soldier’s physique, muscles on his arms and torso barely restrained by a tan undershirt tucked into a pair of camouflaged pants as he worked out in front of her.

Adrien wearing his full uniform, plus a helmet and vest, carrying a rifle as he and other soldiers patrolled through a town miles and miles away.

Adrien hunkering down in a ditch, rain pouring over him as he sought shelter from the weather and enemy gunfire from all around.

Adrien’s battered and bruised body being dragged from the wreckage of a vehicle that had been bombed, his face pale and void of any signs of life.

A flower-covered casket being lowered into the ground by his friend and brothers in arms, all while herself and his other friends from school watched on in helpless sorrow.

“Marinette?” The call of her name was enough to bring her back to reality, where Alya, Nino, and Adrien were all looking to her in worry. “Are you okay?” She caught how Alya’s eyes flicked to something on her face, and Marinette was sure to be questioned about her tears when they were alone.

Trying, and failing, to be subtle about it, she quickly stands and rubs her eyes of the tears before they can call, and makes an escape. “I... I need... I’ll be back...” Her eyes are clamped shut as she races down the hallway and out of sight, no real destination in mind. Marinette barely got into the bathroom before she couldn’t hold it anymore.

Alya finds her five minutes later, and wastes no time in pulling her best friend into a consoling embrace, knowing all too well just exactly what is going through Marinette’s mind.

—

It’s not the first time that Ladybug had missed a patrol without prior any notice. Sometimes things came up at the last minute, and it isn’t until their next encounter that Cat Noir receives an explanation from the girl in question. And if he was being honest, he’s done the same thing to her as well, so he couldn’t really complain.

If anything, he’s thankful for nights like this. It gives him a chance to drop into his other friend. After a few quick jumps and bounds, Cat Noir reaches his destination. Though to his dismay, his friend isn’t up on her balcony and drawing or designing away in her notepad. Instead, she’s curled up on a seat with a slow and mournful song playing quietly on her phone.

Frowning to himself, he approaches quietly and wordlessly takes a seat beside her. He barely gets a chance to ask her what is wrong before she leans into his side and rests against him, tears steadily streaming down her face. Any kind of quick remark he had prepared on his tongue dies at that, and instead he just repositions himself so that his arm his wrapped around her comfortingly, allowing her to cry quietly into his shoulder and let out her apparent grief and distress.

—

“Sorry about that...” Marinette says with a sniffle, wiping her face of any traces of wetness.

“Don’t fret, everyone needs a good cry,” Cat offers her a reassuring smile as she finishes collecting herself, “I’m sure you’re feline better already.”

Marinette rolled her eyes at his pun, but is thankful for the distraction. Even if it’s only for a moment, it’s better than where her head has been at for the majority of the evening. Alya had comforted her as best she could, assuring that while there was still unrest in far off lands, the French military had no intention to deploy any time soon.

That knowledge had been enough to keep her stable for the rest of the day at school, but curiosity got the better of her and the first thing she did after getting home was to look up news reports from various wars around the world, both historic and current. She was only able to pull herself away from the screen after seeing a picture of multiple flag-covered caskets waiting in the back of a transport plane, the image too much to handle for her fragile mind.

“So, penny for my lady’s thoughts?” Cat asked, once again bringing Marinette from her inner thoughts. She sighed and leant into him, trying to find the words without revealing too much of her own identity or the people she associated with.

“Well... one of my friends told me something today that really upset me,” she began, wiping her eyes before more tears could form, “and I’m afraid that I’ll never be able to see them again because of it.”

Cat Noir quirked an eyebrow at her, “I’m sure that whatever they said wasn’t bad enough to warrant not being friends again...”

“... he’s joining the Army, Cat...” was her quiet response.

“Oh... oh, I see...” He was floored. He could understand exactly why Marinette was upset now. That explained why she had fled after he had broken the news to their group of friends, and why she avoided him for the rest of the day.

“And I’m afraid that while he’s serving, something will happen and he’ll get badly hurt or even killed... or that he’ll come back and no longer be the absolutely caring, gentle and kind boy that I’ve come to lo- like...” she continued, looking up at Cat with worry in her eyes, “I don’t want to lose him.”

His heart was torn, as he wanted to console and her tell her not to worry, but was bound by his promise to Ladybug to not compromise his identity. She had made it very clear that nobody was to know who he was outside of the suit, not even herself, regardless of the circumstances. And as painful as it was, he couldn’t risk the fallout from having someone know who he was.

“I’m sure he’s thought about this in great detail, otherwise your friend wouldn’t be making such a huge decision like this,” Cat offered, trying to keep his voice light in order to cheer Marinette up, “besides, him being a soldier is not that different from Ladybug and I fighting akumas.”

“But it is!” Marinette all but shouted, pushing away from him. “When you two fight an akuma, it’s mostly magic that helps end the fight. Ladybug captures an akuma, uses her powers and everything is back to normal.” She stood up from the seat and started to pace in front of him. “There’s no magic charms or spells out on a battlefield. All it takes is one lucky shot or a bomb that’s just that bit too close and Adrien’s dead. No bringing him back, no second chance, no nothing.”

Cat sat up and tried to calm her down, “Last I heard though, the Army weren’t heading anywhere anytime soon.”

“There are still accidents though, Cat,” she wheeled around on him, “tanks and trucks crash, safeties can fail, and other people can make mistakes. He’ll be surrounded by danger...”

Cat pulled her into his arms and hugged her reassuringly, “He’s surrounded by danger here to, you know. Akumas, dangerous drivers, that girl Chloe that’s at your school...” he began, smiling at the small chuckle that Marinette made at the mention of their mutual annoyance, “at least if he’s in the Army, he’ll learn how to take care of himself and defend himself and others better. I’ve seen some of the brochures myself, and if it weren’t for the fact that Ladybug would kill me, I’d sign up myself. That and I don’t think black leather and those camouflage uniforms would blend well.”

Marinette started to chuckle, then outright laugh as she pictured Cat as he described, and turned to look at him with a cheeky smile. “You likely wouldn’t last that long in the Navy, what with all that water around you.”

“I wouldn’t need a parachute if I had to eject from a plane, I’d land on all fours anyway.” He said back, smiling and happy that Marinette was starting to cheer up.

He would have to break the news of his upcoming absence another night...

—

Adrien departed for basic training a month later. Coincidently, Hawkmoth’s akumas stopped raising havoc around the same time. More worryingly though, to both Marinette and Ladybug was Cat Noir’s supposed disappearance. It meant that she had more patrols to herself, which wasn’t so bad initially, but she came to miss the constant flow of puns and jokes from her partner in crime.

She also missed the smiles and banter between her, Adrien and the rest of their close group of friends.

They kept in touch, as recruits were still allowed to exchange letters during basic training. Adrien had even invited herself, Nino and Alya and their families to his graduation parade at the barracks. Unfortunately, as she had just started an internship with a small fashion design company around the same time, she couldn’t attend.

(It’s still one of her biggest regrets in life).

She did, however, keep all of his letters from when he was in training and through his first posting to what was called a ‘light infantry’ battalion that was based in the northern region of France. Marinette had done her research upon hearing that tidbit of information, and with every letter, she slowly became more and more versed in his job, just like she had when he was still modelling for his father.

But as the time passed, as he kept renewing his contract year after year (unlike the ‘two-to-three years’ he had expressed at the time he made the choice), the letters started to slow down. He was bouncing from unit to unit, moving all around the country. Occasionally, Adrien would say in a letter that he had travelled overseas to train with some friendly countries in their homelands, taking part in some big exercises.

She keeps all of the pictures that he sends back (the one of him in his ‘combat’ uniform sans shirt and vest, skin glistening with sweat, is taped to the mirror in her flat’s bathroom), and writes the dates on the back of each of them. Eventually, she arranges them in a small scrapbook with scans of his letters alongside them, creating a ‘timeline’ of sorts. Marinette can’t help but notice how much more mature (and attractive) he becomes in each picture.

Then the letters stop.

—

Three months. It was three months from the last letter she’d received from him when she turned on the TV to see the headline of the Army deploying overseas. At first, she thought she was having a nightmare and desperately willing herself to wake up and see that all was well with the world and that Adrien would still be safe and wouldn’t be put in needless danger and that she would finally get to see him once he leaves and-

Her mothers arms around her shoulders confirm that, yes, this is real life and yes, this is actually happening.

She barely eats her breakfast while watching the news report, her anxiety overwhelming her appetite to the point where even the thought of eating makes her feel ill. Though it’s not as bad as it initially appeared to be: the Army was supporting on-going peacekeeping operations in a war-ravaged city, with only a relatively small deployment of two hundred troops and an additional two hundred support staff.

Peacekeeping, in her eyes, was no different to what she and Cat Noir did during their patrols at night: maintaining a watchful eye over the area and helping out when needed. She could imagine Adrien doing many of the things that she saw other peacekeepers on the news do: helping rebuild schools and homes, protect hospitals and healthcare centres, deliver much needed food and water to the starving, bringing a sense of safety and comfort to those who needed it the most.

The more she thought about it, the more she realised that this was one of the reasons, if not the main reason why Adrien signed up in the first place...

“I feel like I can make much more of a difference this way. I’m sick of people giving to me, just because I’m a model and because of my family name. I want to turn it around; give back to my community, give back to my country...”

Furthermore, the French’s rotation is only for a year, after which another country takes over and has their ‘turn’. And if her memory served her right, and if Adrien was keeping true to his word in his last letter (“... I think I’ll finish my contract this time around, and not extend again...”), he’d be back home in Paris after they were scheduled to return.

That is if his unit, one of the few things that Marinette did not know, was sent over in the first place.

-

“Hello?”

“Oh Mari, it’s Alya...”

“Alya! It’s been a little while! We really need to catch up sometime, it’s been forever!”

“I know, I know... hey, look, I shouldn’t be telling you this, but I’d rather you hear it from me first than see it on the news...”

“... Alya? What’s wrong?”

“Adrien’s unit; they were part of the force deployed for that peacekeeping job in Somalia.”

“Yes... what about them?”

“The base camp... it was attacked by the armed militia that they’re fighting against. Nobody’s been killed, but there were a lot of serious casualties...”

“A-Alya... no...”

“That’s why I’m calling you; Adrien’s safe. He was out on a patrol when it happened.”

“...”

“... Marinette?”

“S-sorry! Just... almost dropped my phone... that’s great, that’s really great... thank you so much for calling me...”

“You look after yourself now, okay? Just remember that you’re lover-boy is safe and unharmed.”

“Yeah... thanks Alya.”

(If Alya noticed that Marinette didn’t react to her light-hearted tease, she didn’t bring it up.)

—  
The news from the peacekeeping deployment since the attack starts to become more frequent, as the militia kept on harrassing the French forces at their base and while they were out with the public on patrols. After the fifth ambush, there was serious talk of more troops being sent to help make up for the men and women wounded and subsequently brought home.

Alya was her rock, both in the literal and figurative sense of the word. Whenever there was a rather major event involving the troops, Alya was the first to call up and reassure Marinette that Adrien was safe (as far as she could find out, that is) and that she had nothing to worry about outside of the ordinary.

There was also the one instance where she gave Marinette the heads up that Adrien was interviewed by a reporter during a fluff piece about how they were rebuilding a recently destroyed school. Marinette had recorded and watched that interview many times: the image of Adrien running around a field in his camouflage pants and a brown undershirt, chasing after a football while being chased by half a dozen young boys and girls, all of them laughing and smiling despite the poor living conditions... it was more than enough to send her heart fluttering and make her knees weak.

The report that held all of her attention, however, about five months after that first major attack. It was the report she was waiting for.

They were coming home.

—

Marinette slept in and was much slower to rise than normal. Her ‘patrol’ had turned into a four hour long pursuit of a really persistent burglar. She was lucky enough to have waited to hit her bed before passing out from just how tired she was. As she cleaned herself up in the bathroom, a glance at the picture fixed to the side of the mirror instantly perked her up and gave her more than enough motivation to get ready.

Adrien was coming back for good. He’d said so in his first letter in ages, one she received about a week after the news of their return was announced. The contents of the letter both warmed and broke her heart. Adrien had spoken of how generous and welcoming the locals were, even during what was undoubtedly the worst moment of their lives. How the children would constantly pester him for chocolate and sweets while they walked around or drove around on their patrols. How young men would instantly volunteer to help them rebuild, even if they didn’t have the proper training in construction.

He’d also spoken of how the attacks had affected him, and how scared he was during the first time he’d ever been shot at. Of how helpless he was when he saw his friends hurt and wounded during countless short but brutal ambushes and skirmishes. Of how horrified he was when he saw how the ‘enemy’, the militia they were sent to fight, treated innocent people that they had taken prisoner. Of how empty and drained he and his team were when they discovered the first mass grave...

To her relief, and some concern too, he didn’t go into much detail about those specific events and instead opted to end the letter with him saying that he was definitely leaving the Army when he returned, as he decided not to extend his contract another year. “I don’t think I could do this anymore, as much as I would love to continue... this tour, it’s shown me how much value life has, and I want to savour as much of it as I can... I want to live life to its fullest....”

The end of the letter was directions for her (as well as Alya and Nino, she presumed) to meet him at the airport. There was a gate number, a time, and even a flight number for her and the others to reference so they could be reunited as soon as possible.

After finishing cleaning herself up, and a rushed breakfast, she all but flew down the stairs of her apartment to where her car was waiting, and wasted no time driving to get to the airport. Alya and Nino were more than likely there already, so she didn’t bother giving them a call to see if they wanted to carpool.

An hour later, and Marinette was standing near the specified gate in the airport. On the other side of the class, she could see a white airliner with the words AIR FRANCE printed along the sides rolling closer and closer towards the terminal and its ‘bridge’. This was one of the troop transports that had been chartered by Air France Airlines and were flying out across France today and the next few days, taking soldiers home to their families across the country.

The anticipation and excitement in the air was tangible; looking around, she could clearly see that she wasn’t the only one waiting for their loved one-

Loved one? The thought blindsided her like a freight train. Ashamed as she was to admit it, she was still crushing hard on the young man just as she did all those years ago. And yes, she did care for him and worry about him, just like any close friend of someone who was actively serving would. While she was being honest with herself, she was loathe to admit that physically, Adrien the soldier was far more attractive than Adrien the model.

“Attention all passengers and airport guests, please be aware that Air France flight nine-six-two is now disembarking...” Marinette’s gaze flicked from staring into space to watching the gate doors intently. She noted that the attendants of the gate had opened the doors and that the bridge itself was connected to the front door of the airplane. Interestingly enough, a staircase was set up at the back exit of the airplane as well, with a safe walking path marked out with safety cones.

Down the long hallway, she caught sight of the first sign of movement.

—

Adrien was eager to get off the plane. Keen to crawl back into his own bed. Scared as hell to see how much (or how little) had changed since he’d last been home years ago. Terrified to see his father after their less-than-pleasant separation. Excited to see his friends again.

More than ready to see Marinette and hold her in his arms after so long.

Adrien was kicking himself for not writing more frequently of late, but there was little he could do about it. He found himself with very little time to himself after his most recent posting, then when they received orders to deploy (three months before the public were made aware) they were under strict orders to ‘keep their mouths shut’ about troop movements and their pre-deployment preparations and training.

And it wasn’t until towards the very end of his overseas tour that Adrien actually had the chance to write and let Marinette about his impending return.

He had only had the time to write the one, as much as he’d have wanted to see all three of his best friends at the airport, and even surprised himself by how fast he decided on Marinette. But, when he looked back at the last few years, he could understand why he made that choice.

She had been his one (and only) true lifeline throughout his career, with their letters back and forth. He’d write about how training and his daily duties were going, she’d write back and keep him informed of her own trials and tribulations as well as those of Alya and Nino, and about home in general. He’d send over the occasional photo of him and his squad playing around or goofing off, she’d return a photo of her and their friends doing the same.

In his most recent letter, he broke and vented about some of the horrifying and terrifying sights he’d seen. She’d written back and brought him out of the dark with her encouragement and reassurances (even if she hadn’t explicitly done so, her letters alone were enough to cheer him up and distract him from those thoughts).

The sound of the passengers beginning to unbuckle their seats and stand up drew him from his thoughts, and he rose up with them, stretching out as much as he could in the rather confined space of the cabin, before reaching up to the overhead bin to retrieve his day pack. The rest of his luggage, a duffel bag and a small foot-locker, were likely being unloaded and taken to baggage claim.

To his surprise, his commanders had approved his separation from the Army and had even brought forward the separation date, citing his constant renewal of contracts ahead of the required date. After today, he would officially be a civilian again.

Well, he thought as he looked down to the ring on his finger, as ‘civilian’ as one with a superhero alter-ego can be.

With his bag on his back, and his kepi on his head, he and the hundred other so people on board slowly made their way towards the front and back exits of the plane. He could feel his heart start to race as he walked through the bridge and towards the gate doors. As her neared the gate, some members of the public started to clap in a quiet applause, having seen his uniform and made the assumption that he’d just returned home.

He scanned the crowd for a few seconds, idly watching as friends and family were reunited with each other, before his eyes landed on the one face he was desperate to see.

—

Time, to Marinette, seemed to slow down once her eyes locked with those of Adrien’s. Her already-racing heart was now working at a fever pitch, her knees feeling weak yet locking up at the same time. The pictures she’d seen of him didn’t do him any justice. If she had thought that he was attractive before... well, he was absolutely hot now.

Subconsciously she smiled, and she really had to fight back a squeal when he smiled back and started walking towards her. Slowly, she started closing the distance herself too, watching as Adrien’s pace picked up with hers, him sliding his backpack off, culminating with her jumping into his waiting arms and him pulling her into his strong, muscular frame tightly like his life depended on it.

(If she wasn’t so preoccupied on not passing out from the sheer amount of relief and joy she was feeling, she’d have noticed that a fair number of bystanders had started to cheer and applaud their little reunion.)

After what felt like ages, though was really barely a minute, passed they seperated themselves, Adrien still holding onto Marinette at arms length by her shoulders.

“Mari...” he sighed out, threatening to make said girl collapse at the sound of the longing in his voice, “... god, I missed you...”

“... I missed you too...” she whispered back, happy tears welling up in her eyes. She beamed up at him, “Welcome home...” she said, before leaning up to press a gentle and chaste kiss on his lips. If their spectators were loud before, they were absolutely screaming out in celebration now.

—

Ladybug didn’t know what to expect on that patrol, the night of the troops return back to Paris. She was aware that emotions would be running high, and that she’d have her work cut out in the event that akumas began to run wild. She opted to run cover more ground by spending lesser time in certain places than she would normally. It’s been years since the last Akuma threat, but she wasn’t taking any chances.

However, she didn’t expect to find a certain leather-bound partner waiting for her atop the Eiffel Tower, a cheeky smirk on his face as he held his arms folded over his chest.

“Evening Princess,” Cat Noir begins with an exaggerated bow, “I hope you don’t mind me swinging-“ He doesn’t get the chance to finish, as he quickly found himself bowled over on the flor with Ladybug clutching him tightly, face buried into his neck. “L-Ladybug?”

“Where the hell did you go!?” She screams, her voice muffled by his body as she continues to cling to him. “One day you were here and the next you were gone! No note! No message! No attempt to contact me!” She pulls away and looks at him furiously, though there are tears running down her cheeks. A couple drip down and land on his face. “Why?!”

“I-I’m sorry, but I never got the chance to tell you...” ‘that I’m actually Adrien Agreste, and that I joined the Army’, is how he wanted to finish, but instead opted for something a little more generic, “... I had a family emergency, and I had to move overseas to help out. I tried sending you a message, but I just never had the chance.”

The excuse seems to satisfy her, as she closes the distance again and comes in for another hug, this one a lot more gentle in nature and less ‘desperate’.

He knew who Ladybug was; he’d finally figured it out during the first month of his career after getting out of basic training. When he did, he berated himself for not seeing it sooner. Seriously, they have the same hair colour and style... nobody else that I know in Paris has that colour in that style...

“How has it been while I’ve been gone?” He asked after a few minutes of comfortable silence.

“Quiet... absolutely no Akuma attacks, and even general crime has been down a lot too... a little bit of unrest when it was announced that the Army were headed out, but even that settled down fairly quickly too.” Ladybug answered, head resting on his chest as they sat and watched the city lights.

“That’s good to hear... I missed you, you know.”

“I missed you too...”

 


	2. Fresh Out Of Basic (Letter)

_Marinette Dupain-Cheng_  
_Cité Des 15 Arpents, 93150 Le Blanc-Mesnil, France_

__Marinette,_ _

It’s only been, what, four or five months since we last saw each other? I know I probably said it a thousand times to you, Nino and Alya at the airport, but really, thank you so much for being there to see me off. It meant a lot to me, seeing as my father was ‘too busy’ to come say goodbye himself… I wish I could’ve sent you more letters during basic, but we barely had any time to ourselves. But whenever I was feeling like I couldn’t go on, I pulled out the letters you and the others sent back. You three are my motivation, believe it or not.

I’m so glad to be done with basic training. The name’s a lie, don’t let anyone tell you otherwise! There is nothing basic about it! I’m sure you would absolutely hate it with a passion: reveillez is at zero-five-hundred (that’s five o’clock in the morning) every morning, and we had thirty minutes to quickly clean ourselves up, clean our rooms, and form up out on the parade ground for the morning parade. After parade, we’d have a brief physical exercise session to get us limber for the day ahead, then we would march to the mess for breakfast.

Depending on what day it was, we would either practise more drill and ceremonial movements, review history and customs, learn basic tactics, and a lot more boring army stuff that I don’t think you would really care for. But it was all worth it.

I’m not going to lie, I was really looking forward to seeing you again after the graduation parade, but I understand why you couldn’t make it. If there’s one thing that’s been pounded into me during training, it’s the understanding of responsibilities and priorities. I’m sure that Nino and Alya have shown you the countless pictures and videos they’ve taken of the parade.

I got posted to an infantry regiment in the north of France, if the return address to this letter is any giveaway. I’m not far from Le Mans, actually, so if I have some leave saved up when the Grand Prix is on, we might have to make it an excuse to see each other and catch up. All four of us!

Life in an actual regiment is different to how I expected. Unlike basic, where there’s an urgency and a demand to do everything as fast and effectively as possible, things here are a lot more relaxed and easy going. That’s not to say that it’s _easy_ ; I still have to wake up early, the company I’m in has a large physical training course they go through every second day, and for the first few weeks I’ve been here, I’ve been shown the finer details on warfighting, infantry tactics and procedures, more of the things I’ll be expected to do if I’m ever in a fight.

I do wish that I had a much lower profile than I had back home, though. I forgot that my modelling career extended out beyond Paris, a fact I was so brutally reminded of when I was called to the Company Commanders office one day. Sergent-chef Sousa, who is the assistant company commander, sat me down and wanted to get to know me. We talked and he asked about what I was doing before I decided to join up. I said that I was just out of lycee, trying to avoid mentioning my _other_ profession, when he reached into his desk drawer and pulled out a fashion magazine.

One that had my face plastered all over it with news that I had ‘abandoned the industry’ and was ‘a grave loss to the fashion community’. I honestly don’t know how my joining of the Army leaked out: I had only told you, Nino, Alya, my Father and Nathalie...

… now that I think about it, I think Chloe might’ve overheard me telling you three about it.

Anyway, he has a daughter a few years younger than us, and wanted me to sign it for her as well as take a photo with him, as proof that I was legitimately in the army. I did it, begging for him to keep it a secret from the rest of the company. He agreed to do so.

The following day, I was given the nickname ‘Poster Boy’, and it’s been stuck with me ever since.

But I love it here. I’ve made some amazing friends here, despite all of the teasing and the like. I’ve gotten my own back a couple of times. One of my squadmates swapped out my boots for a pair of high heels one morning. Should’ve seen the look on his face when I wore them out on parade. I got reprimanded for being out of uniform, but it was worth it.

I hope everything back home has been going well for you. I’m sure you’re exceeding expectations at the studio that you’re interning at (or now actually working at, given that they’ve more than likely hired you on now!). And I trust that you and Alya are keeping Nino out of trouble while I’m gone!

Wishing you the very best, and with lots of love,

Adrien.

* * *

 

 _Soldat Adrien Agreste_  
_3e Compagnie de Combat, 2e Régiment d'Infanterie de Marine, Armée de Terre_  
_Martin des Pallières Barracks, Sarthe, France_

__Adrien,_ _

It’s sooo good to hear from you again! I kind of assumed that with all of your training and moving around from base to base, you mightn’t have a chance to sit down and write to us, so don’t worry!

It’s been that long, but it feels both so much longer and like no time at all. I had to check the calendar just to see exactly how long it’s been! We’re already missing you like crazy, and we’ve had to keep Nino from spending most of his paychecks on flights to come visit you almost every weekend. I know you wouldn’t, but I suspect that your commanders would very much mind him coming by unannounced.

You’re not wrong there, those early mornings sound like absolute torture. I still wonder why someone would subject themselves to that _willingly,_ let alone repeatedly! And I think learning about those things would be interesting to someone who wouldn’t know the first thing about that stuff (no guesses as to who I’m referring to!)

I’m really really sorry I couldn’t make it to your graduation! When I received that invitation, I almost cried when I realised that the date for it was just after I had started my internship. I don’t think I’d have been kept on for long if I was like “hey, I know I just started working here, but can I have half a week off?”

Though, I might’ve been let off if I told them what it was for… hindsight is twenty-twenty after all.

You’re near Le Mans?! I’ll have to start planning something with Alya and Nino for when the racing is on, in that case! I’m sure they’ll all jump at the chance to see you. I mean, Nino will probably be on a plane by the time you’re reading this, but we’ll start planning now!

I guess I should be surprised by the fact that I’m not surprised by that? I mean, it kind of makes sense if you think about it, almost like starting a new job really (which I guess is the case for all of us). The first few months are busy as you’re learning everything you need to do your job, then once that’s done you can settle down and just _do your job_. Though I imagine that shooting guns, riding on tanks, and getting to run around like you do is much more fun than sitting at a sewing table or on a design computer all day… ;)

Oh my god! That is just _toooooo funny!_ I had to take a minute when I read that, because I can imagine your gruff commander barking out “Poster Boy! Front and centre! I want you to go out there and look pretty while the rest of us shoot at them! They’ll be distracted by your sheer model-ness!”

Seriously though, I read that if they’re picking on you and including you into jokes, it’s a sign that they like you. Better being ‘Poster Boy’ than being the outcast, after all.

I’m glad you’re making friends! Just don’t forget who was first, mister! (And I don’t mean Chloe. And while we’re on that topic, I’ll ask Alya if she can dig up who leaked that story to the media. I’m confident your hunch is right, but now curiosity has gotten the best of me.)

Things back here have been much the same and very different too. I’m getting used to living without my parents (though sharing a decent flat with Alya and Nino has been an experience on its own level), but I’m loving the independence that comes with it. Alya (as you already know) has landed a good job with one of the more major newspapers here, focusing on criminal proceedings and other law-based stories. Nino’s touring local clubs and bars more frequently now too; he’s getting quite the reputation as a DJ these days.

Maybe that’s how we can get him onto your base, as entertainment for the troops!

He’s having so much fun with those ‘gigs’, as he calls them, that he barely has any energy left to cause any trouble. If anything, he’s the one keeping Alya and I out of trouble!

We all miss you greatly, and wish you could be here still, but duty comes first (as I’m sure you’re learned by now).

Stay safe soldier, the world depends on it!

Marinette

XXOO


	3. High Altitude, Low Opening (Letter)

_Marinette Dupain-Cheng  
Cité Des 15 Arpents, 93150 Le Blanc-Mesnil, France _

Dear Marinette,

Before you ask, yes, I can tell you what I’m about to tell you. It’s no secret; most of this is public information anyway. My regiment is classified as “regular infantry”, meaning that we do all of our fighting on foot with long-distance transport by light vehicles. ‘Motorised Infantry’ is similar, though they have embedded vehicles such as trucks and armoured cars to help with transport, and these are usually armed. ‘Mechanised Infantry’ is the same but swap out the trucks and cars with armoured personnel carriers (APC’s) and infantry fighting vehicles (IFVs). ‘Airborne Infantry’ rely on aircraft for transit to the battlefield, be it helicopters or transport planes, and they can linger around to provide supporting fire if needed.

I bring this up because my unit, which is a ‘regular infantry’ unit, held a training exercise where we would be deploying out of the back of a C-130 Hercules transport plane.

If you ever get the opportunity to go skydiving, I highly recommend taking it. I simply cannot describe the absolute freedom you feel when you’re falling through the sky, thousands of meters above the ground. Having the wind rush past your face and through your fingers… I’m actually considering requesting for a transfer to one of the Airborne units just so I can do it more often!

It was a lengthy process in the lead up for the jump though. A few days of theoretical instruction: how to jump, how to pack a parachute, what each part of the parachute pack does, how to wear and fit it, how to correctly operate it, the physics of freefall, safety procedures and all of that. Then we had a few more days of practical on-the-ground training: dry jump runs, practise jumps off of a platform into a foam pit, plus a tour of the C-130 aircraft we would be jumping from.

Then it came time for us to actually do it for real.

There’s something really interesting about standing at the end of the ramp, five-thousand meters in the air, staring out and down towards the ground below. Your mind is going through a million things at once as you walk closer and closer to the edge, but once you actually step off, the only thing in your head is ‘please let this work’.

Then it’s nothing. For the first few seconds, my mind was well and truly empty. I don’t know if it was an adrenaline high, or the sensation of being weightless, or the lack of any real connection with anything, but I was at peace.

It was short lived, and I was quickly going “holy crap, I’m falling, I’m falling,” and my training kicked in. We ‘flew’ into a large ring formation, held each others hands to keep close. Some of the guys spun and flipped around a few times, and then our jump leader gave us the signal and we pulled our chutes.

It was roughly seven minutes, overall. Sixty-ish seconds of free-fall, followed by five or six minutes of slowly drifting down to Earth hanging from a parachute. That was peaceful too, but in a different way. More of a reflective peace, where I could think back on what had taken place, and where I wanted to go from there…

Besides the TX, we haven’t been up to much lately. Just more low-level training and administrative duties. Really, the para-drop was the only highlight of the last few weeks…

Hey I managed to sneak a picture with my “battle-buddy”, Soldat Julian Figueroa, before we jumped. Lucky that we didn’t get caught by the loadmaster or our jump leader. And I don’t know if you’re taking design tips, but velcro for pocket fasteners? As unsightly as it is, they’re worth it when keeping things like phones secure from falling out mid-flight.

I’ve got a briefing for another field training exercise in a few minutes, otherwise I’d hang around and write a few more pages… so I’ll end it with the picture of Julian and I at the ramp.

Hope to see you soon!

Adrien.

* * *

_ Soldat Adrien Agreste _

_ 3e Compagnie de Combat, 2e Régiment d'Infanterie de Marine, Armée de Terre  
Martin des Pallières Barracks, Sarthe, France _

Dear Adrien,

Firstly, thank you for reassuring me, though like you said, nothing you said there even seemed remotely classified. I actually looked up your unit when you sent your first letter after basic training, just to see what kind of things you might get up to. Most of it I didn’t understand, but it’s the thought that counts, right?

And secondly, I think you’re absolutely out of your mind if you think I’ll ever consider jumping out of a perfectly good airplane! I’m content with living my life on the ground, thank you very much! Your description is more than good enough for me, even if it doesn’t capture half of what you experienced.

I have to keep this one short too, sadly… I’ve been put in charge of a design line, and a lot of the people that are under me have been here a lot longer than I have and are resenting me as a result… I wish I could make friends as easily as you did, then my life would be easier.

That picture… I can barely recognise you with all of that equipment on you! How can you tell each other apart when you’re doing your soldier stuff? I mean, I know you all have nametags and the like, but still!

I said it last time, and I’m going to say it again:

Stay safe soldier, the world depends on it!

~~ I depend on it... ~~

Marinette

XXOO 


	4. I’m On My Way... (Letter)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a slight heads-up. This particular letter contains content that might trigger certain responses in people. If you have any aversions to any mentions of war-crimes or violence in general, I suggest you skip this letter. I don't get in detail or anything, but I don't want to risk making anyone upset either.

_ Marinette Dupain-Cheng  _

_ Cité Des 15 Arpents, 93150 Le Blanc-Mesnil, France  _

Dear Marinette,

I’m sorry I haven’t written to you for a long time… a lot has happened since the last letter. I haven’t been able to write to you for a number of reasons: it’s been really busy lately and I’ve not had the chance to sit down and actually write something out that’s worth sending, and then we’ve had a number of rules put in place to stop news from leaking out before it was approved for release.

I mean, you know by now that we’re in Somalia helping the UN with continued peacekeeping and counter-terrorism activities in the region. Redevelopment, delivery of aid, local security, training and support for local police and military forces, in addition to the counter-proliferation, counter-piracy, and other more ‘warlike’ activities.

As I’m writing this, I think the news that we’re wrapping things up and coming home is either being announced as you read this, is about to be announced in the next few days, or has been announced.

Either way, I’m coming home. And for good this time.

I’m leaving the Army. I don’t think I can do this anymore, as much as I would love to continue... this tour, it’s shown me how much value life has, and I want to savour as much of it as I can... I want to live life to its fullest...

I guess I’ll have to tell you this from the start for it to make any sense…

It was after the first attack on our main camp. I’m more aware that it made national news, and I want to reassure you that I am all in one piece and was completely unharmed by what took place. My Company was out on a patrol at the time, and the fighting had mostly finished by the time we returned back to help.

The commanders wanted us to put the pressure on the militia after that: be more aggressive, show them who they’re picking a fight with. Gradually, our patrols became less about outreach and assistance and more like counter-insurgency.

I’ve read my fair share of history: if there’s one thing us French are  _ bad _ at, it’s counter-insurgency. The Indochina War, need I say more? That said, nobody’s inherently that good at it either… just ask the Americans…

It was a week after the first attack that I was shot at for the first time. There’s nothing on this earth more terrifying than that, Marinette… I guarantee it. Having bullets land mere inches away from you and not knowing where they’re coming from? It’s heart-stopping. Movies and video games portray such things as full of action that carry on for maybe minutes at a time. They don’t capture the feeling of dread when the guns goes silent and you don’t know if either the shooters are reloading, if they’ve been killed by the rest of your squad, if they’ve retreated, or are just waiting for you to move out of cover. I mean, they try to simulate it the best they can during training and then through field exercises back home, but nothing prepares you for it. There are a few moments where the soldiering instinct they try so hard to instil in you fails, and your basic human survival instincts kick in. I found myself more than a few times wondering if I was going to die.

Worryingly enough though, those times faded as my unit became involved in more and more fights. Is that a sign that I’m just getting accustomed to all of this? Or am I starting to become less afraid of death? I don’t know what scares me more...

I was fortunate enough to have escaped that first firefight, and countless others since, physically unscathed… others were not so lucky. You don’t realise just how loud someone can scream until they’ve been hit by a rifle round in the arm or leg.  ~~ I can still hear one of my friends yelling for a medic as he crawled into cover, blood rushing from ~~

Sorry… I’m trying to keep this letter clean for you the best I can, but my hand gets the better of me sometimes...

Anyway, a month later, we were tasked with a routine patrol mission, two sections out on foot about two kilometres from this town the rest of our company and 2e were visiting that day. Initially we were just to linger around the outskirts of the town, but our company commander had noticed something odd about how the town’s inhabitants were behaving: very shy and reserved, avoiding us as much as they could, very little interaction if we initiated contact. Another sign was the condition of places like their medical clinic, police station, town hall…

We headed out, poked around the hills and sand… didn’t see much of anything until we started to smell something to our west. My squad leader led us out and followed the smell. As we closed, it became stronger and stronger, and more distinct. Make no mistakes, we knew something had died out this way, but we thought it might’ve been a herd of goats or something like that…

… I can’t bring myself to describe what I saw, lest I give you a mental image that’ll keep you up at night. I couldn’t sleep properly for a few nights afterwards, though it was a combination of that and what happened later.

After our discovery, I think we were all feeling more than vengeful and wanted to go out hunting. I’m sure my squad leader, team leader and even the assistant Company Commander wanted to go out, find whoever committed those horrible acts, and make them pay.

… I mean… we found innocent women and children, Mari… who could do such a thing? What kind of a monster can stand back and let something like that happen, let alone commit such an atrocity…

We noted the position of… well, for the need of a better term, the mass grave and returned back to the town where we passed the information up the chain. We were instructed to go back to the site, take photographs as initial evidence, then return back to base and turn the photos in to the intelligence department for analysis.

I deliberately put myself as part of the security team for that little expedition. Anything to keep me away from that sight… It was two months ago now, but I still have vivid nightmares of that place sometimes…

I spoke to one of the doctors that work in the camp here, part of one of the NGOs (non-government organisations) that are running relief work in parallel with us, and they’ve helped me process what I’ve been going through and my feelings surrounding it. It was unofficial, but he said that whilst what I saw was horrific, I don’t exhibit all the signs of post-traumatic stress.

He did give me the contact info of a good psychologist in Paris though, and I’m definitely going to see him once I’ve settled back into civilian life. I can’t imagine how I’d be if I didn’t speak to someone by now.

I don’t expect you to reply to this letter: odds are that by the time it gets processed and forwarded to the camp, I’ll already be on the transport planes home. I have attached the final parts of my movement orders though, so I hope to see you at the airport when I arrive. I’ve highlighted the important bits for you; hopefully they make sense…

I cannot wait to get out of this place and back home.

Missing you,

Adrien


	5. The Trigger

Marinette was dreading this moment the second that Adrien returned home from Somalia. She’d done her research shortly after he had returned, studying up on the signs and symptoms, memorising the common triggers, learning and rehearsing basic grounding techniques, and prepared herself as best she could for the moment so she could help Adrien when he needed it the most.

A battered old delivery van backfired in an alleyway they were walking past. Marinette continued on maybe one step before she was pulled to a stop. Looking back to Adrien, she saw him frozen in place with a thousand-yard stare in his eyes. She quickly put two and two together, glancing at the van as it drove further down the alley, before focusing her attention back on her boyfriend.

“Adrien…” she began slowly, taking both of his hands in hers and squeezing them firmly, noting just how tense he was, “look at me… Adrien!”

Her voice seemed to bring him back, as his eyes snapped back into focus and locked onto hers. His hands tensed up harder for a second before they relaxed, though Marinette could not mistake the slight tremble in them now.

“I’m not going to ask you if you’re okay, because you aren’t,” She began, pulling him in for a gentle hug, “but I just want you to know that you’re home and safe, okay?”

Adrien nodded and slowly wrapped his arms around her, returning the hug. “I’m home and I’m safe…” he repeated quietly, burying his face into the top of her head.


	6. Worry

Adrien had most definitely changed after his time in the military, there was no mistaking that. It was unheard of for anyone to have joined, serving for a couple of years without any kind of deployment or field experience and then leave without undergoing some type of change: a boost in self-esteem, improved physical performance, a greater sense of discipline, increased confidence without the associated cockiness, and just a general improvement of attitude.

Marinette had seen Adrien evolve, for want of a better term, throughout the years he’d been in the Army through the snapshots he’d offered in his letters. He’d definitely grown a backbone, if what Adrien had shared about the exchange between him and his father when they made contact for the first time after he got out of basic training was any indication. He had also grown a lot more humble, though he was pretty humble to begin with as he never liked to flaunt around his wealth and influence unless it was for a good cause.

The Adrien in those letters was not the same Adrien that was back home in Paris. This Adrien appeared to be everything that the other Adrien appeared to be, but deep down he was almost an entirely different person. Marinette felt guilty having to refer to him as two ‘seperate Adrien’ personalities, but there was no other way to properly describe him.

And she honestly couldn’t blame him. That final letter from him only barely touched the surface of what he’d seen and experienced over there for all those months. No doubt, if she was in his shoes… or boots in his particular case, she’d have definitely come back a changed woman. One of the first things that he’d admitted to her on his first day back that he had already booked in to talk to someone about his experiences, on the recommendation of that civilian aid worker that he had befriended in the camp and his former commanding officer during a final pre-return debriefing. He had even shown her the card for the counselor with his initial appointment time on it, just to remove any doubts in her mind.

It’d been a couple of months now since he came back, and he’d had a few sessions between now and then. Marinette wasn’t sure they were working for him though.

Adrien still loved to come out to parties and hangouts with her, Alya, Nino and other members of their old class group when they happened, but he never appeared fully engaged. His eyes were constantly on a swivel, and his back was almost always towards a wall. They all found that he was less focused on the story being told or discussion at hand and more towards his and their surroundings.

Alya found it intriguing. Nino waved it off as soldierly instinct. Marinette saw it as signs of an unsettling sense of paranoia.

Whenever they were walking from one place to another, Adrien always either took the lead by a few steps or hung back a few, walking wide around corners or past alleyways with a faster than normal pace. Whenever they walked close to a wall, Adrien always kept a little distance between him and it.

Alya and Nino were amused, and played along with his training by harmlessly imitating him. Adrien did find it quite amusing himself, more because his ‘civi friends’ were trying (and failing) to be soldiers. Marinette grew worried that Adrien couldn’t let himself relax a little.

Crowds and gatherings seemed to be a rather rough place for Adrien, Marinette observed. When news broke that he had returned home for good, the outside of his apartment building was all but swarmed by press and paparazzi, eager to get a glimpse of the ‘golden boy of fashion’ after his ‘selfless tour of duty’. He’d been untouchable to the media while he’d been away: his unit’s public affairs office were rather hard to get through, and no reputable publication wanted to get on the bad side of the French Army or the Ministry of the Armed Forces.

Marinette had been waiting in the foyer of his building when the horde of press arrived, which had been minutes before Adrien reached the ground floor. She’d seen him hesitate for a split second before putting on a stern face and making his way to the exit. They were holding hands, a detail that Marinette would’ve held back on in the presence of the press (she didn’t want to become a tabloid target herself) but the grip he had on her hand was uncomfortably firm and bordering on painful. It wasn’t until they reached her parked car outside, got inside and drove away when he finally relaxed and took a deep set of breaths, returning back to his ‘usual self’. In the past, during school, he’d never become that tense around large groups or crowds.

Hyperawareness, an increased sense of paranoia, avoidance of crowds and large gatherings, not to mention that he no longer seemed to enjoy playing video games with her and the others during their catch up days. Even fashion or modelling news, something that Adrien was at least somewhat engaged in due to his earlier career, failed to capture his attention. If anything, it seemed to upset him a little.

Combine that with his little episode, for want of a better term, the other day...

Marinette was worried for him. And she didn’t know how much more he was hurting...


	7. The Phone Call

“Hello?”

_“...Mari?”_

“Adrien?”

_“Yeah… shit, sorry, I just saw the time… I hope that I didn’t wake y-”_

“You didn’t, so don’t worry about that. I’m actually kinda glad you called… didn’t realise how late it is…”

_“Still working on that commission piece?”_

“Unfortunately, yeah… the client put in a request for some last minute changes after the last review. I told them that there was no guarantee that I’d get it done, but they put up an extra payment as incentive and an apology for the timing … I can’t justify not trying now, not after that.”

_“Of course not… personally, I would’ve told them to shove it, and stick to what you had made.”_

“Oh please, not everyone has that ‘soldier’ glare that you’ve got.”

_“I don’t know, Mari, you could give some of my old instructors a good run for their money.”_

“That’s reassuring: if fashion falls through, I can always become a drill instructor!”

_“Take my advice: stick to the needle and thread…”_

“Speaking from experience, Soldat Agreste?”

_“That’s Soldat 1e classe Agreste, thank you very much, and of course I am…”_

“You got paid to wear clothes. I’m getting paid to make them. Until you prick your fingers with a needle enough times that you’ve lost count, stick to looking pretty.”

_“And until you’ve been nearly cooked under studio lighting while wearing a leather jacket, stick to making me look pretty.”_

“Touchè, good sir.”

_“Hah! Don’t call me sir: I worked for a living!”_

“... cannot believe I actually almost laughed at that.”

_“Just shows how much you’ve picked up from me, heh heh.”_

“I don’t know if that should frighten me or not…”

_“It doesn’t frighten me, if that’s any reassurance.”_

“Now I can sleep easier.”

_“Wow, I think they could hear that eye roll from the ISS.”_

“Oh quiet you!”

_“Never!”_

“...”

_“...”_

“...”

_“... Marinette?”_

“Yes?”

_“Thank you.”_

“You don’t need to thank me. It’s like I said: ‘anytime-”

_“- and anywhere, no matter what.’ You don’t know how much that means to me…”_

“Anything to help you out, even if it’s only a little bit.”

_“You really underestimate just how much you help, you really do… I’ve spent the last five hours trying everything to get myself to sleep…”_

“You don’t have sleeping meds?”

_“... I don’t like taking them… they… they make things worse…”_

“... oh, oh crap, I didn’t mean-”

_“It’s fine, Marinette, don’t worry about it… it’s something that neither of us can do anything about, so there’s no point in stressing over it. But yeah, I’ve tried everything I can to try and get myself to sleep, but I’m just too amped up.”_

“That’s… that’s terrible. I sometimes have the opposite problem: I wanna stay up to get something finished, but I cannot keep myself awake and alert.”

_“Maybe we can swap problems one night, heh… seriously though, talking to you has just… I’ve had to stifle like ten yawns since we started this call.”_

“Oh?! Are you calling me boring?”

_“Marinette, you’re like the least boring person I’ve met, and I used to be friends with a guy who blew things up for a living. No, you’ve got a voice that just… I don’t know, it puts me at ease, makes me relax in a way that I can’t really explain…”_

“... Adrien…”

_“... and it sucks because I can’t call you every night I can’t sleep, which is like every night at this point, and I don’t want to depend on you because I feel like I’m not beating this fucking problem on my own-”_

“Adrien.”

_“- and I feel so fucking helpless and weak! But I know that I have no right or reason to complain there are people over on the other side of the world fucking being slaughtered and treated like damn animals and I’m lying here in a soft bed wrapped in full cotton sheets-”_

“Adrien!”

_“-complaining about how I cannot FUCKING SLEEP!”_

“ADRIEN AGRESTE!”

_“... fuck… I’m sorry Mari… you didn’t need to hear-”_

“You shut the hell up right now and listen, okay?!”

_“... okay.”_

“Adrien… I’m so sorry that you had to see the things you saw, and do the things you do. It takes a brave person to do and see that stuff… it takes a braver person to admit that it upsets them, and you’re one of the bravest people I’ve ever known.”

_“Mari…”_

“No, Adrien, you are. You’ve seen and done some fucked up stuff, and it doesn’t make you any less of a man to cry over it. You’ve met my father, that huge hulk of a man? He cries over Marley and Me! If he can openly cry about a fictional dog, you are more than allowed to cry over what you’ve gone through.”

_“But…”_

“I swear, if the next words out of your mouth are ‘but it’s not the same’, I cannot be held responsible for what I’ll do next…”

_“...”_

“Smart man… look, Adrien. Crying and letting people know how you feel about all of this just shows that you’re still human. Honestly, I’d be much more concerned if you weren’t upset or unsettled by all of that… the fact you’re already seeing someone professionally about this from the day you came back is a good thing, and shows that you’re aware you’re having issues and want to get help. You aren’t bottling it all up like I know others do…”

_“Yeah…”_

“Be proud of that, Adrien! Look, we both know that this is not going to go away real quickly, and it’s fine to admit that it sucks… but this is a marathon, not a sprint. And trust me, you’ll get there. And you’re not alone. Myself, Alya, Nino, my parents, your therapist, your soldier friends, we’re all by your side. You aren’t alone in this, Adrien, and you never will be…”

_“Yeah… you’re right…”_

“Now, don’t go falling asleep on me just yet. I’ll need you to buzz me inside.”

_“Okay… wait, what?”_

“I’m coming over, Adrien… you’ve earned a full night’s sleep, and I think my voice will have more effect if it’s live and not through a phone speaker.”

_“... okay… don’t take too long though, I’m fading fast.”_

“I’m already out the door… see you soon.”

* * *

 

For the first night in maybe three months, Adrien Agreste got a proper night’s worth of restful, nightmare-free, and peaceful sleep.


	8. Excessive Force?

Paris had become weirdly peaceful and akuma-free for the last few years. It had started shortly after Chat Noir’s mysterious disappearance and had continued even up to and past his just as mysterious return.

Not that he or Ladybug were complaining about it. The worst thing they’d have to face during a nightly patrol these days was the occasional burglar or dealer: a cakewalk considering that nine times out of ten, their suspect would instantly surrender once the pair of heroes arrived on scene. It seems that even the common criminals were more than aware of what Ladybug and Chat Noir were capable of.

Ladybug gave her partner a curious look, studying him as he surveyed the next leg of their patrol route from a nearby chimney. Chat had disappeared for what he called a ‘family emergency’, an emergency that apparently lasted a few years. She didn’t pry for details, despite her curiosity, as it would be pushing the line of maintaining their anonymity.

But whatever Chat had been up to all that time, he had changed. It would have bren a little amusing that two of the most important men in Ladybug (and Marinette’s) life had both changed a fair bit, if it weren’t for the nature of their changes.

Adrien was slowly but steadily working through his post-traumatic stress issues, battling his nearly constant nightmares and daytime flashbacks whenever he heard or saw something that reminded him of Somalia. The only reassuring detail was than whenever he was ‘triggered’ into an attack, he would freeze up or go deathly quiet. He certainly didn’t get violent or aggressive, at least to her knowledge.

Chat had grown more severe and less playful, taking their ‘vigilante’ duties far more seriously. The flirtation dropped off quite a bit too, and Ladybug was a little loathe to admit that she missed it. He’d also become less showy in his actions, moving in a carefully coordinated and calculated manner. It was quite the spectacle to watch, if she was being honest. He’d also grown a lot more remorseful too, taking much more time to assist and comfort any victims they came across while Ladybug dealt with the authorities.

“Let’s go Bugaboo, last one to the Arc de Triomphe buys the next round.” Chat teased with a confident smirk, spinning his staff flawlessly before stepping off the ledge.

“Hope you brought your wallet!” She called out after him, making a running leap as she swung her yoyo out to follow him.

That was another small detail: he’d become a lot stronger physically too. At times, she wondered if Chat’s kwami was working overtime to keep all that muscle contained in that leather catsuit of his. She wasn’t surprised by the development per se; they had both matured into young adults during their time as heros, and changes to their own bodies was expected.

No, it was the extent of his physical change that surprised her. Before he’d disappeared, he’d been a fairly lean teenager with hints of muscle tone in his arms and legs. When he came back, he looked as if he’d been carved out of stone. He wasn’t excessively built like some are, but he definitely had strength and definition, looking every bit as powerful as he was.

“Ladybug!”

Chat’s alarmed shout dragged her from her introspection, and she looked to where her partner had held up with his staff pointed down towards a nearby alleyway.

“Group of three, moving in on that woman to our right…” he called out to her, his voice dropping into a lower register.

“Okay… you sure about this Chaton?”

“Bet my life on it…” Chat nodded, his eyes glued to the lead man in the group below. With a final nod, both he and Ladybug leapt into action. They jumped from the rooftop onto an adjoining one, and again until they could drop down between the men and their target.

“Hey!” Chat called out loudly, touching down a few meters in front of the group’s leader, his staff held in line with his right arm. “I suggest you turn around and walk away.”

Ladybug landed beside the young woman they were after, stepping in front of her protectively. She could see the two other men hesitate at the sight of the two heroes, sharing a knowing glance before they backed away slowly with their hands held high.

The leader didn’t get the memo, as he scowled and approached Chat. “This is none of your business kitty cat, go run along now before you get yourself scratched.” The would-be mugger drew out a knife, to Marinette’s immediate shock. Very rarely, if ever, did they encounter a criminal that was armed in such a fashion.

“Nobody needs to get hurt here,” Chat responded, his staff now beginning to twirl slowly in his hand as he took a cautious step backward to create distance between him and the threat, “drop the knife and I guarantee you’ll get off lightly.”

“Chat…” Marinette called out, following his lead as she started to guide the woman out of the alley.

“Listen to your little girlfriend,” the mugger taunted with a vicious smile, “lest she end up like y-”

His remark was cut out with a loud shout as Chat slammed his spinning staff down upon the man’s wrist, shattering the bone and sending the switchblade knife clattering down to the ground. Before he could react, Chat closed the distance and locked his leg behind one of the mugger’s own, then slammed the end of the staff into his solar plexus, winding him and sending him flying onto the ground below. As he fell, Chat swept the man’s leg out and with a graceful turn, delivered a sharp kick into his side.

All that happened in the space of a few seconds, with both Ladybug’s and the woman they saved mouths dropping open in shock. Ladybug was stunned: Chat _never_ got aggressive and _never_ struck first, unless they were fighting akumas (that was a different kind of fight in the first place), and _never_ had he moved with such _brutal_ efficiency before. It was almost like a move that an action hero might pull off in a war movie.

Chat crouched down and forcibly rolled the winded mugger onto his front, pulling out the man’s belt and using it to tie his arms behind his back without saying a word. His movements were clearly practiced, especially how he positioned his knee into the small of the mugger’s back to keep him compliant.

It didn’t take much longer for the police to arrive, and with Ladybug and Chat Noir on scene plus the statement from the would-be victim, the officers didn’t hesitate in arresting the man for attempted robbery.

The heroes didn’t hang around, but they only got a few rooftops away before Ladybug pulled up short and fixed Chat Noir with a puzzled look. “Why did you do that, Chat?”

He stopped short of the next ledge at Ladybug’s question, and turned to find her standing there with her arms crossed. “Do what, exactly?”

“Attack that man?”

Chat stood there, a little in shock at the accusation that Ladybug had made. “... you were _there_ , right? You saw that he had a _knife_ , right?”

“So that makes it okay to strike first?” Ladybug questioned, stepping closer to him.

“Never stopped you from making the first move on an akuma,” Chat shot back, frowning at her tone.

“That’s different,” Ladybug began as Chat moved to stand right in front of her, “Akumas are inherently magical in nature, and our powers are magical in the same nature. The damage they can cause in that first moment is unpredictable and can be extremely destructive.”

“So a sucking chest wound, punctured lung or other vital organ, or a slashed artery isn’t as serious as damage done by an akuma,” Chat stated bluntly.

Ladybug shook her head, “No, that’s not what I meant.”

“How else am I supposed to interpret that? You’d prefer me to be defensive and risk getting myself or someone else hurt?” Chat turned around and threw his hands up in frustration, “Sometimes it’s better to take out the threat before it gets worse. You don’t let the enemy get the first move, because that single move might be the one that gets you killed.”

“... you’ve changed, Chat…” Ladybug said after a moment of tense silence between them.

“A year of combat’ll do that to a person,” Chat muttered back as he hung his head low, taking a seat on the edge of the rooftop they were on.

“... Chat?” Ladybug prompted cautiously, approaching him and taking a seat by his side. “What do you mean…?”

“Exactly what I said,” Chat snapped at her softly, focusing on his feet as they dangled over the edge, “I lied to you, Bug… have been for a while, actually…” he chuckled to himself dryly. He collected himself and picked his head up to look at Ladybug, holding eye contact with her. “That stuff I said about that family emergency? The emergency was me getting thrown out of home and being all but disowned after I told my father that I joined the Army.”

“You… you what?” Ladybug said in disbelief, sitting there in shock at his admission. Chat didn’t notice, as he rubbed his face and continued on.

“Yeah, signed my life away to the country. At least it wasn’t the Foreign Legion, otherwise I’d still be out there. Anyway, that was all good and fun until I got sent overseas to fight.” He looked back at her, “Oh yeah, the media was all ‘peacekeeping this’ and ‘hearts and minds that’. No, we were told once we got there that it was counterinsurgency disguised as peacekeeping. Each team would rotate around between public side and private side missions. Public being rebuilding, patrols with public affairs attachments, all that fuzzy feeling nonsense. The other stuff… well, you can imagine what we got up to.”

He sat up and looked up towards the night sky, the stars barely visible with all the street lighting around. “Search and destruction of enemy camps and storage facilities, interdiction of militia forces before they could hit their own targets… I’ve killed people, Ladybug. These hands,” he held up his black gloved hands in illustration, “have spilled the blood of other people, and there’s no going back from that. I keep going back there almost every night: firefights, ambushes, mass graves…” his hands dropped down to his side, tears starting to roll down his face. “I can’t make them stop.”

Ladybug sat there with tears of her own starting to form, but for a different reason entirely. The broken voice of her partner was like that of her friend Adrien’s from a few nights ago, when he’d rung her up at two in the morning in a sleepless state. And as Chat had been venting out his pent up emotional stress, Ladybug had been all the pieces fall into place.

Chat Noir disappeared without a trace the same week that Adrien shipped off to basic training, and had reappeared the same week that Adrien returned.

Both Adrien and Chat Noir had changed physically, with clearly defined strength in their bodies.

They had also both changed emotionally: Adrien was a lot quieter and more paranoid in certain places, while Chat seemed a lot more task focused and far more engaged in taking down criminals.

Adrien and Chat had both been in the Army, and deployed overseas. They’d both seen and done things that had traumatised them.

Adrien Agreste and Chat Noir were the same person.

“... Adrien…” Ladybug whispered out before pulling him into a tight hug, running a hand through his short blonde hair as the young man’s dam of emotions finally broke. Never in a million years would Marinette have thought that the reveal of their identities would begin with the man crying his eyes out into her shoulder.


	9. I Was There Last Night...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a kind-of prelude to Chapter 7 “The Phone Call”, even though I hadn’t actually planned it to be.
> 
> I wanted to explore more of Adrien’s POV this time, show some of the things he’s seen and show how that’s affecting him now that he’s at home. It’s not just combat that can leave lasting effects, after all...
> 
> TW: mentions of war crimes.

Pupils blown, eyes wide, heart racing and body shaking, Adrien Agreste sat bolt upright in his oversized and soft mattress as he waited for his body to come down from its hyperactive state. Rather quickly, and thankfully, the instructions from the therapist he’d been seeing when he came home finally began to block out the myriad of other thoughts, memories, and emotions that were racing around his mind:

 

_Breathe in, two, three, four, five._

_Hold, two, three,_

_Out, two, three, four, five, six, seven._

 

_Laptop, light switch, bedroom door, my day pack, and my phone..._

_Bedsheets, my pants, the air from the air conditioning vent, and my heart racing..._

_Faint sirens outside, crickets in their nest outside my window, and the ducted AC unit..._

_Leftovers from dinner, and the aftershave I spilled on the floor earlier…_

_… I volunteered to serve my country when it wasn’t expected of me..._

Feeling a little calmer than he did a few minutes ago when he woke up, Adrien let himself fall back down onto his bed and stared at the ceiling of his apartment bedroom. His hands had settled down from their disruptive shaking down to an uneasy tremble, and he tucked them in behind his head to try and still them down a little more as he ran over in his head what just happened; a debriefing of sorts, he rationalised after the first few incidences of these nightmarish flashbacks.

_Okay… Julian was in the middle of telling a story..._

* * *

 “... and the way she was moving, oh man, you would’ve thought I had an APAV round in my pocket,” Julian Figueroa said, laughing at the groans from the rest of the squad as they patrolled the outskirts of a town a few kilometers out of the Mogadishu city centre. Adrien shook his head and rolled his shoulders, the weight of his ‘tooled up’ HK416F assault rifle already making itself known despite the sling he had attached.

At least he wasn’t Julian, who was assigned to carry their heavy Minimi belt-fed machinegun, or Michel Mercier, the squad’s assigned marksman who was armed with the HK417 and it’s long twenty inch barrel and heavier bullets.

“Come on man, don’t talk about Pierre’s mother that way,” said marksman spoke up with a laugh, referring to their pointman, Pierre Marceau.

“He was talking about yours, Mikey,” Adrien chimed in with his classic smirk, making the men in earshot laugh, and Michel glare at him.

“Damn, Poster Boy got you good,” their section leader, Tavin Andresen, called out from the rear of their patrol group. Adrien smiled at the praise, glad that his team could still have a laugh despite how bleak things were getting.

He opened his mouth to add to his remark, but a waft of an extremely pungent smell caught him by surprise. Adrien slowed down and broke away from the rest of the patrol, following the scent.

“Agreste? What’s wrong?” Tavin called out from behind him, a little puzzled and mildly concerned for the younger man’s behaviour.

“Do you smell that, _Caporal_?” Adrien asked back, looking at his section leader.

* * *

  _… and from there things just went downhill..._

Adrien sat up in his bed once more, rubbing his face as he realised that he wasn’t going to sleep any time soon. With a small grumble, he swung his legs out to the side and climbed out of bed, making his way out of his room and to the kitchen space.

_Once we were given the okay to separate, we moved to investigate…_

* * *

 “This isn’t just a regular trash pile odur…” Pierre grumbled as he, Adrien and Julien followed their noses in search of the source of the extremely pungent smell.

“Do you spend a lot of time in the rubbish, do you Marceau?” Adrien joked lightly, his shemagh pulled up over his nose in a feeble attempt to try and get a fresh breath.

“Oh ha ha, Poster Boy, like you’d know what garbage looked like if it hit you in the face,” the pointman shot back with a smirk, “Daddy dearest likely had the maids come and sweep the ground behind you clean.”

“No, he never did that,” Adrien defended himself, “the maids used vacuum cleaners instead. It was faster, but very noisy.”

The three soldiers shared a laugh as they neared the crest of a small sand dune. Both Adrien and Pierre gagged as the smell grew unbearably strong. To both their dismay, they saw that Julien was disturbingly unphased. “Jules, how can you not want to throw up.”

“When you’ve grown up with a butcher as a father, you get used to the scent of decomposing and rotting flesh real quick…” the automatic rifleman remarked quietly, eyes fixed on the mount of freshly disturbed sand that stood out from the smooth plains ahead of them.

Adrien stole a glance at the mound then back at Julien. “So… what does that mean?”

“Best case scenario: the village lost a few goats or something like that and they buried them poorly…” Julien sighed as he shifted the sling of his Minimi around his shoulders, “worst case scenario…”

* * *

  _Julien always had this sixth sense for things like that. I’d noticed it when we became friends and had spent a fair amount of time together: holding me back around a corner to avoid being run down by a fellow soldier on a run; sensing that we’d be getting deployed before anyone else knew…_

Adrien rubbed his face as he gulped down the headache relief tablet, the cool breeze from the air conditioning duct above him a stark contrast of the hot sweat that still lingered on his skin from his rude awakening.

His heart rate and breathing pattern had returned to what he considered ‘calm’, but the headache and sore muscles from the aftermath of his adrenaline surge was preventing him from fully relaxing. The painkillers would take effect soon, but as for right now, he had to suffer.

_I knew that there was evil in this world. As much as my father tried to shelter me, the internet was a thing I still had access to. I saw headlines that informed the wider public of the atrocities that took place in the world; death and destruction, terror and fear, war and conflict. But even then, nothing could’ve ever prepared me for what we found that day._

* * *

“Lion Two-One Main, this is Two-One Papa,” Pierre called into the radio, taking a quick moment to spit out a small globule of vomit that had remained in his mouth after washing it out with his canteen, “we, uh, we need Lion Two Main on the net, maybe even Lion Main, how copy over?”

Adrien sat nearby, head between his knees as he processed the sight they had uncovered minutes before. His stomach was twisted up in knots, the contents drying in the sand a few meters away from where he sat after their discovery had been made. Julien was still standing at the crest of the dune, watching over the uncovered mass grave from a distance.

 _“Two-One Papa, this is Lion Main. You’ve got us, Two Main and Two-One Main on the net, what is your message, over?”_ The stern voice of the company commander, Capitaine Damien La Pointe, carried over their radio handsets.

“Lion Main… we’ve found what appears to be a mass grave, over.”

_“... Two-One Papa, can you please reconfirm what you just said?”_

“We found a mass grave, sir… men, women, children… maybe a week old, over.”

_“Understood Two-One Papa. Your instructions are to hold your position and secure it, break. Two Main, I want you to move your platoon to that squad’s position and reinforce them. We’re going to arrange for Lion One and Lion Three to pick up the patrols in that space while you maintain security, how copy, over?”_

_“Lion Two Main, understood. We’re moving now, over.”_ Their platoon commander responded, his own voice sounding a little subdued over the radio. 

_“I’ll pass this up the chain to command and get the appropriate units on task for you. Until then, all I want you to do is secure the site and prevent any further tampering. Do not disturb the site itself, understood?”_

_“Two Main copies all.”_

“Two-One Papa, understood, out.” Pierre signed off with a quiet sigh. He removed his helmet and clipped it to his vest, wiping his brows before he retrieved his camouflaged wide brimmed hat from his pocket and placed it on his head as he sat down beside Adrien. “This is fucked, man…”

Adrien nodded, the ability to speak robbed from him as he still tried to process what he’d seen.

* * *

  _One hour of pulling security before the Red Berets, who none of us realised were deployed with us until that moment, arrived in their helicopters and took over control of the scene. For Command to have deployed our special operations teams meant that what we had found was serious. Yet, for all that work, I’m sure none of it made headlines back home when it happened._

Eyes shut, Adrien let his head hang back over the edge of the couch cushions as he stretched out the tense muscles in his arms, legs and back. The small rush he felt helped him relax a little, but didn’t last long enough for him to properly enjoy it.

He opened his eyes and sat back up as he contemplated turning the TV on to fill the oppressive silence of his apartment, before his gaze landed on his mobile phone that rested on the cushion beside him. He didn’t recall picking it up when he left his bedroom, but as he studied it he recalled something that Marinette had told him a little while ago…

_“If you need to talk to me about anything; the army, overseas, home, a cat that you saw in the window, just call me. Anytime and anywhere. I’ll answer.”_

Adrien took a calming breath as he picked up the phone and unlocked it, a shaky thumb scrolling through his contacts until it landed on Marinette’s face and name. He pressed it before he could think about his actions, then held it up to his ear as he waited for the inevitable sound of her answerin-

 _“Hello?”_ Adrien released a breath he didn’t realising he’d been holding, and his next word came out as more like a sigh than anything else.

“...Mari?”

 _“Adrien?”_ Oh, already he was feeling himself relax just listening to her voice. Out of reflex, his eyes flicked up to a clock mounted on the wall across from him, and he finally realised just how late it’d been when he woke.

“Yeah… shit, sorry, I just saw the time… I hope that I didn’t wake y-”

_“You didn’t, so don’t worry about that. I’m actually kinda glad you called… didn’t realise how late it is…”_


	10. Twenty Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tw - mentions of suicide: discovery and aftermath, no details

“So he got out at the same time?” Marinette questioned as the pair walked down a quiet street of a southern Paris suburb, hand in hand.

Adrien chuckled, “When you say it like that, it sounds like a prison sentence.”

Marinette rolled her eyes, “Well, if you look at the two and compare them, there _are_ some similarities.”

“Yeah, if you squint,” Adrien shot back, playfully shaking his head, “But yeah, Pierre got out after I did, actually. He’d served a little longer and was actually hoping to apply to the Red Berets.”

“Red Berets?”

“Our special forces. Officially they’re called the First Marine Infantry Parachute Regiment, but they wear a red beret as part of their ceremonial uniform instead of the Kepi that everyone else has.” He stretched his arms out and took a cursory look around before continuing, “they do similar kinds of stuff that the British SAS or the American Rangers. Getting selected is hard work, but if anyone of us was going to do it, it would’ve been Pierre.”

“Do you know why he left?” Marinette questioned as they turned down the last street and into a row of small houses.

“He didn’t say anything outright, but I’m guessing it was Mogadishu…” He didn’t need to say anything more as Marinette had heard the story from him a little while ago.

“I hope he’s doing fine…”

“He sounded fine on the phone when he invited us over, just… well, expect a lot of questions,” Adrien warned her with a growing blush on his face. Marinette frowned at him in mild concern.

“Why, exactly?”

“Well, he and Julian always teased me about writing those letters to you, often saying things like ‘are you writing your girlfriend again’ or ‘hey, here’s something you can send your girl back home’, stuff like that.”

Marinette laughed at the explanation, squeezing Adrien’s hand reassuringly. “Hey, if I can survive Alya and Nino’s endless interrogations, I think I’ll survive a session from one of your friends.”

“I hope so… hey, here we are.” Adrien pointed out as they came to a halt outside a small low-set home down towards the end of the street. A black sporty motorcycle was parked in the driveway, and the mailbox had a few letters in it awaiting collection by the resident. The pair shrugged it off as they approached the front door. Adrien turned to look at Marinette as he reached to knock on the door, “God, I hope he doesn’t answer…” his voice trailed off as the door swung open after he knocked on it, and the pair of heroes felt their adrenaline start to surge.

“Adrien?” Marinette prompted softly as the young man’s face shifted from one of calm to one of focus, and she could only imagine that this was the face he wore whenever he was on a patrol back overseas.

“Stay behind me,” Adrien said quietly but firmly, as he stepped into the house. It was dark, with all the curtains inside drawn closed. He didn’t dare turn on any lights though, as it might give away his arrival to any potential intruders inside. His eyes swept the walls and across the open plan living space just past the house’s small entryway, and was put at ease to see that there weren’t any obvious signs of a struggle. Yet, something still didn’t seem quite right. “Mari, stay here but watch my back, okay?”

“Okay,” Marinette responded, closing the door behind them and taking a place off to the side of the room that gave her clear view of the rest of the house. Adrien disappeared down a small hallway that she presumed led down to the bedrooms and bathroom. As she stood vigil, she ran her eyes over the room and Pierre’s visible belongings: a French flag pinned to one of the walls; a small table that was covered in framed photographs containing pictures of soldiers from his and Adrien’s unit; a few empty bottles of beer and scotch that hadn’t been cleared away…

She walked around, taking in more and more of the space as she built a mental image of how Pierre would be like when she finally met him, taking into account Adrien’s own descriptions of the man.

What Marinette found more interesting was the lack of some items, namely pictures of what might’ve been his close family, or anything that indicated recent movement or activity in the house. Some parts of the room looked like they hadn’t been touched in a day or two...

“Fuck! Pierre!” Adrien’s loud shout made Marinette jump, and she turned to see Adrien backpedal out of room into the hallway, his back hitting the wall.

“Adrien?!” She jogged over, gripping his shoulders with her arms to settle him. His eyes were blown wide and fixated into a space in front of him, and she steeled her nerves before taking a look to where he was staring.

* * *

“Twenty two.”

Marinette looked up to Adrien in a mixture of concern and confusion. The two words were the first he’d spoken since they’d left Pierre’s house under the watch of the local Gendarmerie and other emergency services that had responded. Pierre… he was beyond saving when they found him, with the first responding physician confirming that he’d been gone for a number of hours by that point. After leaving their statements with one police officer, they’d left back for the train station to begin their journey home. Along the way, she had tried to speak to him and prompt him to talk, but the most she got out of him were one word answers or non-committal grunts and noises.

She’d be lying to herself if she said that it wasn’t hurting her to see Adrien hurting so badly. She’d also be lying if she she said she wasn’t worried that he’d regress from all of the progress he’d made with his own mental trauma. By his own admission, he was beginning to feel better than he had when he’d first come home: his nightmares were growing less severe and less frequent; open spaces and crowds made him less anxious than they once did; and he felt himself growing more and more at ease with day to day activities.

But had today’s unfortunate encounter undone all of that progress?

“Twenty two?” She questioned, a little thrown off by the random and somewhat cryptic mention of the number.

Adrien sighed, leaning back into the seat of the train they were riding in as he rubbed his face. “It’s estimated that an average of twenty two veterans commit suicide every day…” he recalled, his gaze unfocused. “When we were told that during our post-deployment debriefings, everyone in our squad said that we’d try our best to keep each other from being one of that twenty two. We shared contact details, addresses, everything we had to keep in touch with each other if we needed it. Pierre, Michel and I were the only ones to actually resign after our deployment though. Everyone else is still in, as far as I know. Last I heard, Michel’s found himself work as a private contractor in Iraq.”

Marinette nodded, taking in what Adrien was telling her, and sat quietly as he continued, “I don’t know what to feel… part of me is upset that he’s gone, part of me is angry at him, and part of me is disappointed with myself.”

“Why disappointed?” She questioned quietly, a little put off and concerned that he was putting himself down over this.

“I should’ve seen the signs sooner, should’ve asked if he needed help or something. We had each other’s backs overseas, I should’ve had his back here at home,” Adrien answered, leaning forward with his head in his hands. Marinette leant over and rested an arm around his shoulders reassuringly.

“Adrien…” She had to pick her next words _very_ carefully, “... what if he couldn’t be helped?”

He sat up slightly and turned to look at her with a frown forming on his face, “What is _that_ meant to mean?”

Marinette bit her lip, furious that she had apparently said the wrong thing. She scrambled in her mind for a response, “Well… look, from what I understand, everyone reacts differently and processes things differently. Even if you put two people through exactly the same thing, they will invariably cope with the trauma differently. And not everyone shows their trauma differently.” She sighed and leant into his side, “Besides, it’s not like you weren’t keeping in contact with him at all.”

Adrien relaxed slightly, knowing she was right in that regard. While it wasn’t exactly frequent, he did make a point to exchange a few messages with Pierre every couple of days, their own respective schedules permitting. They even called a few times to speak over the phone, but up until this weekend they hadn’t had the opportunity to actually see each other face to face. “I know… but still, I should’ve seen or noticed _something_ …”

“For all you know, he could’ve been hiding it from you, either deliberately or subconsciously…”

Adrien looked at her with a curious half smirk, “... since when did you get a degree in psychology and trauma management?”

She blushed a little at his question, “I… don’t take this the wrong way, but I did some research of my own when you first came back. I’d heard the stories about soldiers before and wanted to be prepared, just in case…”

His smirk softened into a gentle smile, and he leant down to pull her into a side hug, “I see… thank you.”

“I care about you… you don’t need to thank me.”

“So, you think that he might’ve been hiding it from me?” Adrien prompted after a few moments of comfortable silence.

“Possibly… I mean, you did a little of the same with myself, Alya and Nino when you first came back, moreso with them than me.” Marinette pointed out, giving him a few examples from a couple of months ago after his return.

Adrien shook his head, “Damn, I never even realised.”

“And neither would’ve he, if he wasn’t actively hiding it from you anyway… you also have to realise that you were trying to help yourself at the same time,” she said softly, resting her head on his shoulder, “He probably figured you might’ve been fighting your own battles, and didn’t want to burden you. You can’t help others if you can’t help yourself.”

As hard as it was to hear, and harder to admit, but Marinette was right. He might not have had the same kind of progress had he tried to help Pierre out at the same time.

“If it’ll make you feel better, dedicate your own life to his, live for him and remember him for how he lived, not how he left.”

Adrien sat quietly, pondering over what Marinette said to him, and after a few minutes contemplation, sat up in his seat and looked at her with an expression she’d only seen him use as Chat Noir.

“I’ll do one better.”


End file.
